Ministers should accept that a deal over Gibraltar's future is dead, MPs have said.

A deal splitting sovereignty of the Rock between Britain and Spain is fundamentally wrong and unenforceable, members of the Commons foreign affairs committee warned on Thursday.

"The reality is that the deal is not only wrong in principle, it is simply unenforceable,'' MPs said.

"The government should recognise explicitly that the deal is dead, and should arrange for a speedy burial."

Ministers have been involved in protracted talks over the future of peninsula which has been under British control since 1713.

Britain and Spain set up the Brussels process to resolve ownership of Gibraltar in 1984 and had proposed a joint deal of "two flags, three voices" last year.

But Gibraltarians pre-empted the outcome with a referendum last November in which they rejected the proposals and effectively killed the negotiations.

MPs called on Foreign Office ministers to focus their efforts on trying to normalise relations between the people of Gibraltar and Spain.

"We recommend that the FCO withdraw its unacceptable joint sovereignty proposal, and then get on establishing normal and co-operative relations between Spain and Gibraltar as should be the case between member states of the EU and their dependent territories," said the committee.

The MPs called for the government to defend efforts to give Gibraltarians a voice in the European parliament.

Britain is considering linking Gibraltar to a British constituency for EU elections.

Spain has challenged a 1999 European Court of Human Rights ruling that Britain must include Gibraltar residents in European parliamentary elections.

"This may be sabre rattling, or it may be a serious attempt to interfere in the democratic process," the MPs said.

The committee challenged the Ministry of Defence to reconsider its landing charges at Gibraltar airport - which are five times higher than at Spain's Malaga airport.

Spanish controls at the Gibraltar border were slammed as "unreasonable and petty".

The committee also criticised the Spanish government's refusal to back NATO military manoeuvres involving the Rock.